Bombers Bay

The weekend was one of my usual crazy super busy weekends. It started with the DSO with guest conductor, Sir Neville Marriner. I was pretty damned excited as I've heard his name for what seems like my entire life. He's been the conductor at the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields forever which he formed in 1959. The man across the aisle from my seats at Orchestra Hall has had season tickets longer than me, and we've been talking for the past couple of years. I talked to him on Friday before the concert to tell him how excited I was about seeing Sir Neville for the first time in my life and he said he was just as excited. It's so nice having a fellow classical music geek to talk to once in a while.

Dinner before the symphony was at TJ's, of course. The owner stopped by to say Hi as we used to work together and she told me about a new jazz club she and her husband has opened in downtown Detroit. I have forgotten the name of it, but I know where it's located, if anybody wants to check it out.

Saturday I was supposed to go "plowing" with the Libertarian. I wasn't exactly sure what this all entailed, but I was willing to check it out. I was picturing myself with a pitchfork throwing hay around, but it turns out that we were just going to watch people on antique tractors plowing a field. I'm such a city girl!!!

He was going to pick me up Saturday morning at 10:00 something he was not looking forward to, but then he got a call from the guy whose field it was and turns out that all the bloody rain last week had the field a tad wet – standing water was the term used. It actually worked out well, because that gave me time to do some laundry.

It was Mom's birthday, so my brother got us all together that afternoon to go down to the Calder Dairy so that Mom could see cows as Mom loves cows. I drove myself as the Libertarian lives just around the block (if the back of beyond has blocks) from the dairy and we were going to go driving. It had been two months since I had been driving, and I needed to practice.

Occasionally it's very handy to drive in a convoy because then your brother-in-law can let you know that you have a flat tire (dammit!). Thankfully the Libertarian is a tool-owning kind of guy and he had a fancy tire gauge pressure taker and a compressor to put air into my very flat tire. It has a slow leak, so I took it to Belle Tire after work yesterday. (The Libertarian met me there so that I could still go to the gym. Turns out that my tire had made friends with a nail, but we nipped that new relationship in the bud yesterday.)

Back to the dairy, where I got licked on the knee by a cow. It was kind of disgusting as I was wearing jeans at the time and I could feel the dampness. Yuk. I took lots of pictures but still need to get them uploaded to flickr.com. There was a 3 day old calf – so cute!!!

After wandering about the farm looking at all the animals for about 30 minutes we got ice cream. I got the chocolate peanut butter and I have to say it was pretty darn good. Their ice cream is a little weird in that it doesn't seem to get hard like most ice creams. It was pretty soft, but airy.

The Libertarian showed up a little before 5:00 and met everybody (poor guy) – BAB, SIL, the Terror Children, OS, BIL, and niece. He already knew Mom and YS. We wandered around the dairy for a little while – he wanted to see the baby calf. When we were all done looking at all the animals, I informed him that I was following him in my car to his house. I was not about to attempt to drive a stick shift for the first time in two months in front of my less than supportive family. Oh, they think they're supportive, but making fun of me and asking him if he's worried about his clutch is NOT supportive. Besides, I think it was important that we get my little car with the flat tire to his place.

Before we put air in the tire we went for a drive (before it got too cold for the Jeep) and he asked if I wanted a parking lot or the roads. I chose the parking lot, so he directed me and I drove there. I was having huge issues that day and the damn thing kept stalling and I was getting frustrated. He was getting ticked at the Jeep (said he was glad it was doing this since he had just taken it apart and was feeling bad about it, but now that it was stalling on me quite regularly, he figured it deserved it) and finally opened the hood and turned up the idle as it sounded like there was a miss in the engine. After that, no problem and I tooled around these crazy two lane country roads and it seemed like every time I got to a stop sign there was somebody behind me. They always figured out pretty quickly that I wasn't moving quickly and they'd pass me immediately. If I had been in my car I would have been annoyed, but since I was completely tentative in my driving, I was very happy when they would do it.

At one point I came up on a railroad crossing (actually there were a number of them, but only one had a Stop sign) and the damn Jeep stalled when I stopped. I wouldn't have been too worried, except that I was on a slope and railroad tracks freak me the hell out. I have heard stories all my life about cars stalling on railroad tracks and getting hit by a train. I had to stop and breathe and not think about it and I made it first try. I was very glad that I didn't have to go back that way although that night I had a dream that I stalled the damn thing on the tracks and couldn't get it started and of course a train was coming. Needless to say, I jerked awake. That was not fun.

After driving we put air in my tire and then went out to dinner to see what would happen. The tire had lost a pound of air which I guess wasn't too bad. We then spent a good hour trying to figure out how to put the jack back under the spare tire. It's been sitting in my trunk for the past year and a half and was driving me crazy not being where it belonged. I had asked Belle Tire at least twice before to put it back, but the technician apparently didn't feel like it because it was never done and I never felt like going back in and complaining. I felt much better about not doing it myself when it took the Libertarian a good hour to figure it out.

I had two margaritas at dinner (I really need to avoid cheap tequila – see Jose Cuervo) as it doesn't make my stomach happy. The place we went to for dinner carried every shitty American beer you can think of, along with Sam Adams. I should have gone with the Sam Adams, but for some reason thought I wanted a margarita. So wrong. We sat in the living room listening to music and talking about whatever. I don't even remember. Then he had to give me directions for getting home as I had absolutely no clue. Thankfully it wasn't hard and it only took me 30 minutes and not the 40 he said. I might be a bit of a speed demon. I still got home pretty late though, and I was exhausted all day Sunday.

Sunday was Mass with Mom and YS (another 2 hours which just ticked me off). I was leery about driving all over metro Detroit with a tire going flat, so I took my car home and Mom and YS came and picked me up. We were going to the Franklin Cider Mill for Mom's b-day. We picked up the nephew on the way as he's away at college (but not that away, as it's an easy commute made every day by people who live around here, but he doesn't have a car, so I guess that's as good a reason as any). When we dropped him off we had to see his dorm room. Wow, dorm rooms have gotten pretty nice. It's more an apt than a dorm room with a full kitchen, two bathrooms (with two sinks each) and two bedrooms (two boys in each) and a laundry room with nicer laundry facilities than in my apt. bldg. Talk about spoiled!

Mom & YS dropped me off and then Pamela came over and cut my hair. Highlight of the day – even moreso than the three cider mill doughnuts I had (yeah, I felt nauseous after the third one) – what can I say, I prefer my hair short. I was asleep by 8:00 p.m. that night which was lovely. I love my sleep.

I leave Thursday for Road America for what will be my last race of the season. So sad. And if it rains in Wisconsin this weekend I'll NOT be happy, so please keep your fingers crossed for a nice, autumnal dry weekend. I hate being wet at the racetrack. Thank God HRH's Mini has heated seats (God's gift).